farm machine:The cleansing of history continues as the intolerant continue to widen their scope of what is offensive. Why not leave these parks named as is as a testament to ill conceived failures? A tribute to our ability to persevere and triumph over adversity. When we lose sight of where we've come from don't we also risk letting history repeat itself?

Of course, Memphis could do what most civilized communities do, and put up a nice little informative sign explaining the history of the park, and why it was renamed. Then when the Honey BooBoo clans go there for their annual "eat cheez puffs and be sedentary outside" outing, they can read the first three words of it before getting bored/winded/distracted by a shiny thing.

Fano:They have a big statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest in town, which should be a clue about race relations in Memphis.

You guys are pikers--here in Richmond we have a whole street of Conferderate generals' statues. Oh--and Arthur Ashe, whose statue has its back to the others. It's quite interesting to watch people at once want to glorify Richmond's past as the capital of the Confederacy and kind of sweep it under the rug that Richmond used to be a huge slave market too.

CSS--last year my husband and I decided to play tourist at home and go to the Museum of the Confederacy, which has Jefferson Davis' house included. The guy who led the house tour was black and going on about its great history. I thought it would be like a Jewish guy leading tours of Auschwitz and saying "wow, those Nazis sure had the right idea, huh?"

I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened.

That's from 2005. So by all means - continue slandering a man who has offered endless apology for the sins of his youth. Just like Jesus would want.

// also, he's been dead for 2.5 years already, and there are plenty of living racists in Congress, if your ire is that up about it// or, regale us with your best Ted Kennedy jokes; and you probably have a good zinger about Inouye, too

Nabb1:KenShabby: Nabb1: oldfarthenry: Ya know - I "could" point out that the star-spangled banner was a poem about a war you guys LOST!

/tries to deflect heat off them-there southern folk

You could, but you'd be wrong.

Yeah, that was the War of 1812.

Yes, he brings that up a lot. A whole lot. I expect him to post a pic of Canadian soldiers burning the White House any moment now.

The War of 1812 was essentially a draw, though the Americans achieved some decisive victories against native tribes in the South and Midwest, on Lake Erie, and against British raids at Baltimore and New Orleans. More importantly, British backing of native tribes in the US ended and that had a major impact on the Indian Wars in what was then the far west and elsewhere. The British on the other hand lost influence and never threatened the US again, though they did see fit to arm the Confederates from time to time.

A lot is made of the invasion of Canada from New York, and how the Americans failed to take Canada, but in reality the US simply did not bring its 'A' game to the fight and it showed. Our best commanders were in the west and the south. As for the forrays of the British into the US, the raid on Washington was just that, a raid. Not even the British commander in his wet dreams could image taking Washington and holding it and forcing the US to surrender.

FYI: The raid on Washington was motivated by the Americans burning of what would become Toronto (the capital of Upper Canada). It was carried by British regulars not their Canadian colonial allies.

Canadians like to thump their chest about how they "whipped the Americans", but in reality without the British fleet, British resources, and British troops and armaments, you'd all eating Dunkin' Donuts not Tim Hortons, your alphabet would end in ZEE not ZED, and a maple leaf would be found on a maple tree or laying on the ground waiting for a rake.

dukwbutter:So, when he said the south could keep their slaves if they would just rejoin the Union....you would explain that how. They're just "quotes". I love how "quotes" are different from "historical facts". Tell me more professor. :O

The South seceded to preserve slavery. Anything Lincoln did in response to that does nothing change their reasons for seceding.

Lincoln loved his country and hated war more than he hated slavery. He wasn't a perfect man, and he didn't always make the right choices.

But the hard cold fact is that the South went to war to preserve slavery. That was their stated purpose. Learn your history.

dukwbutter:Don't dare tell me what I can and can't be proud of. fark you. I'm proud of the secession of the South. fark the North. Lincoln and Grant both had slaves. fark you for telling me what I can be proud of.

Be proud of whatever you want. Don't expect the rest of us to start showering you with flowers and adoration for it, though.

// those are suggestions for good-neighboring, not absolute thou-shall-nots// you're proud of the South's secession? Well, I'm proud the North kicked the South's sorry asses all the way to Vicksburg and back// you may find that that pride does not endear you to most Americans - but I think you deserve to know this beforehand

Don't be proud of marrying your sister.Don't be proud of the BJ you gave that trucker last night.Don't be proud of those curtains you bought at JC Penny's on sale.Don't be proud of your genital warts.Don't be proud of beating your sister/wife.Don't be proud of that one time when your uncle dared you to superglue your eyelids shut and you did.Don't be proud of that funny smell on your upper lip.Don't be proud of having written the Twilight books.

Felgraf:dukwbutter: Felgraf: For fark's sake, have you even *read* the articles of succession?

For Fark's sake. Do you even know the difference between "secession" and "succession"? Guffaw!!!! Sucks having a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Aye, I mistyped in my initial post, I realize that. Could you please address the following posts where I not only spell it correctly, but cite two of the articles of secession? And where I point out how they, loudly and frequently, address slavery as a reason for why they seceded.

I'd argue that screwing up a homophone doesn't really equal an unarmed opponent, but, surely if I am so inferior to yourself, you can explain away my subsequent posts?

I await your answer with bated (or baited: both spellings appear to be acceptable) breath, really and truly I do.

No, I'm calm, cool, and collected down here with all of these easy Southern women. They like guys with money.

Good thing you know a few, then.

Yes, it is. It's a my patented system which I call SCRAPS, which is not an acronym. You see, after a young debutante fails once again to secure a proper husband, I move in to console her with promises of Broadway plays and indoor plumbing. Let's just say it's easy pickings.

[3.bp.blogspot.com image 604x453]

Here's a picture of me and some of my bros partying before the Ole Miss game. Check out my madras shorts and of course, the Absolut. Only the good stuff for me, Bo, Rhett, Gage, and Jackson.

dukwbutter:Dr. Whoof: dukwbutter: And to look at a group of people and say that they have nothing to be proud of.

They have plenty to be proud of. The Confederacy is not one of them. The Civil War is not one of them. The Confederate flag is not one of them.

We are proud of every one of these things. You have no right to tell Southerners what they are allowed to be proud of. fark you and the horse you rode in on.

Actually, I sure do have a right to tell them. They don't have to listen, unless they get all "secessiony" again and then, well, they get told with bullets (and these days, missiles, artillery, etc).

However, yeah, I have every right to say treating other human beings as property and essentially livestock, and fighting a war to that end, is nothing to be proud of. It's a heritage of evil. Instead, go be proud of GOOD things the south has done.

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Adopted December 24, 1860 "cession.

Man. They mention slavery a LOT in there. Weird. I was assured it was not about slavery at all!

I reckon that's your problem right there, fella. Any man with a head under his cap and one foot on each shoe can tell ya you don't get chicken feed by going to the cotton gin, and as sure as sugar is sweet, if you're looking to get sweet on Sally you don't dance with Darlene.

No you don't understand. You cannot rewrite history and the men who served did so honorably. They were Americans and you don't have to agree with their cause to honor them for doing what they saw as their duty. I just love how Northerners pretend they didn't buy and sell slaves or that every southerner was a slave owner. Ignorant tool.

I grew up in the South. I am white and lived in a black neighborhood. I saw a lot of parents tell their kids to call me names and fight me because I was a white child. I never saw a white, southern person doing that. So you keep on making up that alternate reality you think the south is today.

Wow! You must have gotten beat up a lot! I mean, its no small feat to have your eyes and ears completely swollen shut for your entire life.

No you don't understand. You cannot rewrite history and the men who served did so honorably. They were Americans and you don't have to agree with their cause to honor them for doing what they saw as their duty. I just love how Northerners pretend they didn't buy and sell slaves or that every southerner was a slave owner. Ignorant tool.

I grew up in the South. I am white and lived in a black neighborhood. I saw a lot of parents tell their kids to call me names and fight me because I was a white child. I never saw a white, southern person doing that. So you keep on making up that alternate reality you think the south is today.

Do you think that might have something to do with you growing up in a black neighborhood?

As a Memphian, I never understood why we had some many confederate themed parks. I always figured, when you lose the war, you don't get to fly your flag.

Also, from what I've read, Forrest wanted to be buried "with his men", which by the way he originally was. He was buried in Elmwood Cemetary with other confederate soldiers. This was what he wanted. If the Sons of Confederate Veterans really wanted to honor him, they never would have dug him up and put him where he is today.

Confederate Park was put there in 1964. You can guess what the city was going through at that time. Naming a park that was nothing more than a slap in the face to black Memphians.

Jefferson Davis Park was named in 1930. This nothing more than a tip of the hat to the Jim Crow ideology.

If these parks had been named immediately after the Civil War had ended, it would be one thing --- still silly in today's world, but understandable that they were named as such IF that were the case. But it's not the case. These parks were named WAY after the Civil War and they were done so to make political statements.

I know lots of people who have huge problems with the renaming of the parks. I think it is LONG overdue. It's embarassing as hell to have the nice, technilogically advanced University of Tennessee School of Medicine right next to the backward thinking Forrest Park.

I've also heard lots of folks around here argue that he became very "black friendly" in his later years. That doesn't change what he did in his earlier years. It's an insult to give him a pass. (Yes, it's also an insult to have given Robert Byrd and George Wallace a pass as well, but I digress.)

And to say that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery is a joke. Of the thirteen state that seceded, eleven mention slavery as a reason for secession in their letters of secession. Of those eleven , eight mention it in the first paragraph. Of those eight, four mention it in the first sentence.

I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened.

That's from 2005. So by all means - continue slandering a man who has offered endless apology for the sins of his youth. Just like Jesus would want.

// also, he's been dead for 2.5 years already, and there are plenty of living racists in Congress, if your ire is that up about it// or, regale us with your best Ted Kennedy jokes; and you probably have a good zinger about Inouye, too

Oh, and anyone that has their mentality parked in the 50s southern stereotype - needs only to swim a lap or two in the big muddy. I've never known anyone who's so much as dipped a toe in that slop that hasn't ended up in the hospital with a severe infection...

mysticcat:I went to med school there, so here is one of my many cool story bro type stories:

The main med school building abuts Nathan Bedford Forrest park where there is a giant statue of the general atop his trusty steed, a virtual ad for Memphis' backward racial attitudes. There are also several benches scattered about, on one of which two tourists were shot point blank in the head the week before I started classes. Thug life.

that was a cool story, bro. i was in tennessee, once, too, near nashville, so that really added to it for me.

Whenever I read about this crap, I'm always grateful that's there are secessionist movements, in various parts of Europe, involving countries that have been under the same rule for centuries and centuries.

This will surely solve the palpable racial tension that permeates the city. And I know lots of people, including, sadly, some relatives, who will have a big problem with this

I went to med school there, so here is one of my many cool story bro type stories:

The main med school building abuts Nathan Bedford Forrest park where there is a giant statue of the general atop his trusty steed, a virtual ad for Memphis' backward racial attitudes. There are also several benches scattered about, on one of which two tourists were shot point blank in the head the week before I started classes. Thug life.